


Destined to React

by saiyanshewolf (gossamerstarsxx)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Arguing, Bickering, F/M, Pre-Relationship, Slap Slap Kiss, Songfic, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 00:38:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9854228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gossamerstarsxx/pseuds/saiyanshewolf
Summary: This boils down to science fact / We are elemental structures, destined to react





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sageofchaos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sageofchaos/gifts).



> Warnings: Mild violence; minor mentions of blood and injury.
> 
> Notes: Belated Secret Valentine gift. I literally thought this was on tumblr. I didn't post it here because AO3 was being dumb for so many days. But it was not on tumblr. It was in my drafts. I'm the worst, I'm sorry. It's been a rough couple weeks guys -_-

##  _this boils down to science fact_ _  
__we are elemental structures destined to react_

_I can’t believe I agreed to go on this mission with_ him _._

Mei stands near the floor hatch of the hovercraft, readying her endothermic blaster to create the ice slide she’ll need to drop down into the contested area below. She had agreed to come in as an emergency replacement for a badly injured Hanzo...but Morrison had neglected to tell her that Bastion had been badly damaged as well. With Torbjorn off on a solo mission...

Mei sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. There’s no getting around it.

Junkrat is her partner.

_This will never work._

She has only worked with Junkrat once before, and _that_ was on a training exercise immediately after he and Roadhog had been contracted, almost six months ago now. It had been...rather unfortunate, to say the least. They already argued with one another constantly and the battlefield changed nothing. Thanks to that, as well as _wildly_ different ideas as to what exactly constituted _defense,_ the rest of their team had ended up ice-walled into a choke point with three of Junkrat’s frag grenades.

Thankfully they were _blank_ grenades.

The ill-fated training exercise had made one thing clear, at least: She and Junkrat do not work well together. The results are disastrous, like the end result of some failed chemistry experiment, building from mild bickering to full-blown arguing, sometimes expanding into an actual _fight,_ with Mei  up on her tiptoes, hands on her hips, shouting up at him, and Junkrat looming over her, soot-streaked arms crossed over his chest, snarling in response.

The most ridiculous part of it is that Mei can’t ever remember what they fight about, exactly. They just... _react._

“This is a terrible idea,” Mei mumbles, “I can’t work with him.”

She is barely aware that she has spoken aloud until she hears Junkrat snort laughter.

She glances over at him; he gives her a nasty grin, as if to confirm her thoughts. His gold teeth gleam in the artificial light as hefts the heavy RIP-Tire across his back, the muscles of his shoulders and arms shifting beneath a layer of grease and soot. He had come straight to the hovercraft from working in his bunker, and he is even filthier than usual. Engine grease is smeared across his face almost in the shape of a handprint, like some kind of Junker warpaint; the back of his left hand is burned shiny raw red, and he smells of fire.

“Keep talkin’ like that I’ll have ta file a complaint or somethin’,” he says, as he adjusts the straps of the harness holding the RIP-Tire to his back. “Wouldn’t want that, now would ya?”

Mei knows that he isn’t serious, but she can’t stop herself from taking the bait. It’s the way his mouth curls and his accent thickens when he’s being sarcastic; it _does_ something to her, something that is so close to irritation that her heartbeat jumps up a notch.

“What kind of complaint could you _possibly_ file against _me?”_ She asks, hands on her hips.

“Creatin’ a hostile work environment,” Junkrat replies, far too quickly and easily for Mei’s taste.

“Hostile?!” She glares at him, incredulous, _offended_ that he has thought it out that far. “I am not _hostile._ And I ought to complain about _you_ for creating _dangerous working conditions!”_

Junkrat laughs. “Snowflake, we’re about ta be dropped into a damn _war zone._ You’re gonna have ta think of somethin’ better.”

He has her there, but Mei cannot, _will_ not let him have the last word. “I mean at the compound! You could blow us all sky high any minute, tinkering around down there unsupervised -”

“Oi, I don’t need no _supervisin’,_ I know what I’m doin’!”

He’s standing over her now, so close that Mei can feel the heat that radiates from him like furnace.

“How are _we_ supposed to know that?” She asks, already on her tiptoes. “It’s not like you’ve got a diploma from the University of Blowing Things Up -”

“Yeah, well, sorry that the _bloody irradiated wasteland_ I grew up in don’t have much in the way of higher education!” Junkrat snarls.

There is brief spike of shame in her chest, but Mei’s stubbornness is like ice, freezing over anything in its path, growing thicker as time goes on.

“Doesn’t mean you had to turn into a _criminal,”_ she says coldly. “With what you found you could have turned your whole life around -”

He laughs again, and this time it’s ugly, bitter. “Snowflake, you don’t know _shit_ about the Outback.”

He’s right, of course, but Mei files that away to think about later; she seizes on the nickname instead, a bone of contention between them since day one.

“Don’t call me that!”

“Considerin’ ya don’t like me callin’ ya _anything,_ I think I’ll stick ta Snowflake.”

“I have a _name,_ Junkrat!”

“Yeah, well, so do I!”

They are inches apart, Junkrat bent almost double over her despite the heavy weapon across his back and Mei being on her tiptoes; his eyes are an infuriating shade of gold and his breath smells like coffee-flavored bubble tea and the air around them is thick and heavy with potential energy, like the last moments before the flaming fuse reaches the dynamite -

Deep brown fingers close over her shoulder and settle against Junkrat’s chest almost at the same time as Lúcio inserts himself between them.

_“Will you two knock it off for five seconds?!”_

He shoves them apart with uncharacteristic vehemence.

“Morrison has been telling you two to get down there for the past _minute,”_ he says sternly, glaring at each of them in turn. “People are getting _hurt_ because you two can’t stop sniping at each other long enough to go do your jobs and defend them!”

“If he wouldn’t -”

“If she didn’t -”

_“I don’t wanna hear it!”_

Mei and Junkrat both close their mouths instantly. Lúcio never raises his voice to anyone, but at the moment he looks as if he would be more than happy to shove them both out of the floor hatch with no warning whatsoever.

“This mission has been ongoing for _weeks,”_ Lúcio reminds them. “We’ve been switching teams out like mad just to keep up with Talon. They don’t give two shits how many of their agents get killed, but _we do._ Or we’re _supposed to._ So just go. _Now._ Morrison has to take me to Mercy. Maybe if I back her up well enough I can make up for you two acting so damn childish.”

He turns his back on them without another word, crouching down to open the lower-body power armor that he uses in combination with his hard-light skates.

Mei says nothing. She can feel her cheeks burning, but she refuses to look at Junkrat. She points her endothermic blaster out of the open hatch, toward the ground, and fires.

_This won’t end well._

* * *

##  _it’s living proof that opposites attract_

Junkrat slides down after Mei, taking care to keep most of his weight on his left leg; there’s no way he’s going to give her the satisfaction of watching him faceplant into the dirt.

He lands behind her, drawing his frag launcher from its makeshift holster below the RIP-Tire and scanning the windows and rooftops for any sign of Widowmaker.

“They’ll double back on ya,” he mumbles, “That snipin’ bitch especially, so keep an eye out.”

Mei does not answer. Junkrat turns to snap at her - they’re sitting ducks out here and it makes his skin crawl - but the stricken expression on her face brings him up short.

“You ain’t been here yet, have ya?” he asks at length.

“I haven’t,” Mei answers softly. “I had a solo mission...I didn’t get back until a few days ago.”

Junkrat rubs the back of his neck with his frag launcher, suddenly out of his element. It is clear that Mei is more than a little shocked at the level of damage left behind, but that doesn't change the fact that they need to get to cover _quickly._

“C’mon,” he says after a moment, “Follow me, yeah?”

“Follow you _where?”_

His teeth grind together, pain lancing through his jaw. He understands that she doesn't trust him and he can't blame her for that, but _she_ doesn't seem to understand just how  _bloody dangerous_ it is for her to be standing out in the open like that, and he  _swears_ that sometimes she does this on purpose, just to spite him.

"'Cause I've seen somebody get headshot before an' I'd rather not see it happen ta you," he snaps, "Or  _feel_ it happen ta me, for that matter. I'm movin' out, follow me or don't."

Miraculously, Mei doesn’t argue. She draws her blaster and follows along behind him as they move to cover, shielding themselves in an alleyway.

“I got sent in with the first strike team,” Junkrat explains, as he leads them both toward the sounds of fighting. “We’d take a point just ta lose it again later, ‘cause Reaper, Widowmaker, and Sombra would double back, pickin’ off anybody needin’ a breather. That's why we need ta keep movin'. I took a fuckin’ shotgun shell ta me peg leg, is why I got pulled out before.”

“That was...that was over a month ago, wasn’t it?”

Junkrat nods, peering around a corner. “This shit's been goin’ on way too long. I want it over with.”

For a little while they move in careful silence, Mei allowing Junkrat to lead; the sounds of battle grow louder, and soon they are actually in position to step in and begin providing defense.

Yet when Mei moves to head into the fray, Junkrat hesitates.

“What is it?” Mei asks, irritation creeping back into her voice. “We need to _move -”_

“Nah, yeah, I know that,” he mumbles. “But listen ta me a minute, would ya?”

Mei sighs. “What do you want?”

“Lúcio was right,” Junkrat says. “We keep actin’ like this, somebody’s gonna die on our watch.”

Mei looks away, but she doesn’t argue; in fact, she actually nods.

“I know,” she says. “But what do we do about it?”

“Look, I know we don’t exactly get along,” Junkrat says, “Hell, we even _fight_ like polar opposites, but...”

"But what?"

"Even if we can't play nice, I think we might be able ta find a way ta work together defendin' everybody else."

Mei frowns. “Junkrat, we technically got our own team killed. In _training.”_

To her bewilderment, Junkrat only smirks. “Nah, yeah, that's it though, ain't it? It was  _our_ team. But if we'd been able ta get the _enemy_ walled up like that...”

Mei looks up at him, and for once the smile she gives him is genuine.

* * *

 

##  _this convoluted braid we are_ _  
__loaded with more energy than every single star_

“Oi, Snowflake! Look left!”

“I said to _stop calling me that!”_

Mei turns on her heel as she shouts, aiming her endothermic blaster at a couple of masked Talon agents trying to flank D.va and her MEKA. She freezes the two of them where they stand almost without batting an eye, letting her momentum carry her to relative safety behind a thick concrete pillar as Junkrat moves in her wake, launching frag grenades.

His laughter is brilliant, deranged...and a little bit contagious.

“I’ll remember your name when you remember mine, _Snowflake!”_

“Shut up,” Mei snaps, a tiny smirk trying to play upon her lips as she raises another wall, trapping yet another Talon squad into a choke point. "Just do your job!”

Junkrat laughs again. “My pleasure!”

He fires another volley of frag grenades over the top of her wall before launching himself up to the roof of a nearby building with the help of a concussion mine; Mei follows after him on a wave of ice.

“You’re going to blow your other leg off one of these days!” Mei scolds him. “Now look, down there!”

“Ah, shut it,” Junkrat replies. “And I see ‘em, just let me -”

“Oh no you don’t! You took out the last big squad like that, it’s my turn -”

“Well when I take ‘em out at least they ain’t gonna _defrost_ and come back ta _kill me -”_

For a brief moment they are at odds again, glaring at one another on the rooftop...and then Junkrat’s begins to grin.

“Snowflake,” he says, resting his frag launcher on his shoulder. “I’ve got an idea.”

Mei arches an eyebrow, suspicious, but when Junkrat leans down to whisper in her ear she listens with a growing smile.

It doesn’t take long for them to get into position. Mei stays on the rooftop while Junkrat heads back to ground level; D.va and Morrison both move in, ramping up their firepower and taking heavy damage in the process.

Mei waits, trusting her instincts; when the time is right she deploys Snowball.

“Fire in the hole!” She giggles into her glove, unable to contain herself.

“Oi!” Junkrat’s amused voice comes through the comm. “Ya stole my line, Snowflake!”

The RIP-Tire begins to whirr in the background.

“Fine, then,” Junkrat mutters. “What is it…”

Mei can hardly believe what Junkrat says next. His accent clings tight to the Chinese words, but Mei recognizes her language despite his thick Western tongue.

_“Dòng zhù! Bùxǔ zǒu!”_

“No chance of that,” Mei says softly, as Snowball circles back to her. Three separate squads have been caught in her blizzard in their effort to subdue D.va and Morrison.

Junkrat’s RIP-Tire comes spinning madly out of an alleyway.

D.va takes to the air while Morrison flees, Mercy and Lúcio both protecting him from the friendly-fire blast.

The RIP-Tire detonates as Mei begins to head back to ground level; the rest of the Talon agents retreat soon after, conceding the point. She and Junkrat meet in the courtyard as D.va, Morrison, Mercy, and Lúcio begin to press forward.

“Why can’t you two do that _every_ time?” Morrison asks.

Mei and Junkrat shoot one another a sidelong glance; Morrison sighs, rubbing one gloved hand over his short white hair.

“Doesn’t matter. Junkrat, secure the perimeter here - Mei, you cover him,” Morrison orders. “We’re gonna push forward. We can take it long enough for the two of you to get this handled.”

Mei nods; Junkrat tips an exaggerated two-fingered salute.

“You could at leat _pretend_ to be respectful,” Mei says, walling off most of the avenues into the courtyard as Junkrat laces the perimeter buildings with his traps.

“The hell would I do somethin’ like that for?” he asks. "I'm done here, let's go."

Mei shakes her head as she begins to follow after him. “I don’t know why I -”

Her foot comes down on one of Widowmaker’s well-hidden venom mines. A thick, violet mist erupts into her face and Mei’s throat seizes tight; the sunlight is suddenly far, far too bright, save for the shadow gathering behind Junkrat.

“Snowflake?" He grabs her shoulder, then her chin, tilting her head up to make her look at him, and his eyes are full of shiny golden panic. "Oi, Snowflake, talk ta me!”

Mei claws at her burning throat, shaking her head and pointing wildly over his shoulder.

Reaper materializes behind him in a whirling vortex of black smoke, his shotguns echoing thunder across the courtyard. Blinding bright pain tears through her side and she cries out, grabbing blindly at the space just beneath her ribs, still choking on poison -

Junkrat puts himself between her and Reaper without hesitation. He snatches her blaster and triggers her cryo-freeze before Mei can move to stop him.

“No!” she cries, and every word is like acid in her throat. “No, _no!”_

##  _oh, we’re going to end up in the ground tonight_

A fine mist of blood bursts from Junkrat’s upper left arm; he jerks, hissing in pain, only to be clipped high on his right thigh - he falls to one knee, cursing violently -

The ice crawls over Mei’s field of vision, sinks into her mind, and she knows no more.

* * *

##  _now since i started everything  
__my cocoon is shedding and the change is in full swing_

As the ice dissipates, Mei begins to come to. The biotics in the ice have lessened the pain in her side, but she falls to her knees nonetheless, unable to process the extent of the damage in front of her. The area is devastated. It looks nothing like the courtyard she and Junkrat had been defending earlier; the damage from his RIP-Tire has been eclipsed by buildings that have collapsed in on themselves, and the ground is strewn with rubble and debris.

“J-Junkrat?” Mei says.

Her voice hangs in the air, unheard, unanswered.

She struggles to her feet; the new skin that had grown so rapidly across her wound in her chrysalis of ice splits apart with the movement. The pain is distant, strange, and secondary to everything. Mei claps her hand over it without really thinking.

_“Junkrat!”_

It does not cross her mind that someone might hear her, someone like Widowmaker who could pick her off without Mei ever knowing she was there. She is disoriented, worse than she usually is after emerging from the defensive cryo-freeze, and there is only one thing on her mind: Junkrat.

She remembers his long fingers closing over her blaster, wrenching it from her grip, pointing it at her as he pulled the trigger; she remembers the spray of blood as Reaper’s shotgun shells tore into him...

Then it had all been ice.

Mei shoves her bangs back from her face, desperately trying to remember what had happened next...but she never remembers anything in the ice.

_“Junkrat! Can you hear me?”_

“Mei!”

It’s Mercy’s voice that answers her call, and Mei does not acknowledge it in the slightest. She pushes forward through the rubble, clutching her side, stumbling over the chunks of stone, coughing with the dust and the lingering effects of Widowmaker’s venom mine.

“This isn’t funny, Junkrat!” She cries. “Come out! I know you can hear me! I know you're the one who blew everything up, so _come out already!”_

“Mei, _please_ -”

Mercy’s hand settles on her shoulder. Mei shrugs it off, her movement through the debris quickly becoming a scramble.

“Junkrat, you _ass,”_ she shouts, “Stop it! Just _stop it_ and _come out!”_

“Mei, you are _bleeding,_ please let me -”

Mei whirls on Mercy, shoving her hand away, shaking and swaying on her feet.

“Did you see?” She hisses. “Did you see what happened?”

Mercy folds her arms across her chest, almost hugging herself. She cannot meet Mei’s eye.

“Reaper…” Mercy shivers. “We heard him. We turned back, Lúcio, and I. Morrison wanted to come, but D.va needed him. One of Reaper’s shots hit one of the defensive explosives Junkrat had set up. I saw nothing but smoke and dust, heard nothing but the explosion. I returned as soon as I could. Mei, _please_ allow me to heal you, and I promise that I will help you search.”

“So will I.”

Lúcio coasts down a strip of caved-in roof, the hard-light beams of his skates adjusting to the uneven terrain as he skids to a halt beside Mercy and Mei.

“I should have tried to grab him,” Lúcio says, his voice thick. “He was already hit. I knew Reaper was gonna try to hit his traps, I knew it and I moved to go to him but he waved me off, and I…”

“You would not have made it out in time,” Mercy says, her voice gentle. “Then we would be searching for two -”

“No.”

Mei shakes her head, refusing to accept what they are implying.

“ _No_ ,” she repeats, putting more pressure on the wound in her side. “We are not looking for a _body!_ We...we’re looking…”

The pain intensifies and Mei has to pause for a moment; when she continues, she is speaking through her teeth.

“We are looking for _Junkrat,”_ she hisses, glaring at them. “Junkrat - _Jamie -_ the most...most _infuriating...j-jackass…”_

She whirls away from Mercy and Lúcio both, clambering unsteadily across the rubble.

“Do you hear me, Jamison Fawkes?” She shouts, furious tears leaving clean streaks across her dusty face. “Do you?! You had _better_ not be dead - y-you _can’t_ be dead, you’re... _y-you’re not allowed…”_

Mei trips. She lands on her knees, scraping them raw as the rough stone rips open the fabric of her leggings, and this time she can’t force herself to stand back up.

When Mercy comes to help her, Mei does not protest. She lets herself be led back to even ground, lets Mercy sit her down on a chunk of concrete and begin tending to her wound as she watches Lúcio begin the solemn search.

Mei tries to focus on the sensation of her skin rapidly knitting itself back together - it isn’t painful, exactly, but it does feel _unnatural,_ and Mei clings to that, trying to feel it to the exclusion of all else.

She doesn't realize that she's crying until Mercy puts her arms around her.

“I am sorry,” she says softly, and Mei ceases to fight it. Lúcio blasts a heavy piece of rubble out of the way with a burst of sound, searching beneath it for any sign of Junkrat’s body; Mei turns away, crying against Mercy’s shoulder.

Both her tears and the pain in her side are slow to fade, but fade they do. When Mei is finally able to stand up again, her eyes are swollen and her side is stiff, tight.

“I don’t think I can move well enough to help look,” she murmurs.

“You don’t have to help,” Mercy says, “It’s all right. Let Lúcio do it for now, until someone comes to...comes to find...us…”

Mei glances up. Mercy is staring into the distance, her mouth slowly parting open. Mei turns to follow her gaze; her heartbeat seems to treble, skipping several beats as it leaps into her throat.

##  _no need to be alarmed_ _  
__that’s just the chemicals_

Junkrat - _Jamie -_ sways a little as Lúcio pulls him up, bracing his metal hand against the chunk of broken wall next to them. Mei is trembling as she watches him thread the bleeding fingers of his left hand through his hair, shaking out the dust.

“Dude,” Lúcio says, “How?”

“Brought the bloody roof down on meself first,” Jamie says, “Can’t fuckin’ believe it worked, archway I was under actually held up...Snowflake made it, right?”

Lúcio glances at her; Jamie takes it the wrong way, as if Lúcio can't meet his eye. What color is left in his face drains away beneath the soot and dust, and he grabs a handful of Lúcio’s shirt in his metal fist.

“Oi! Lúcio! _Is Mei all right?!_ ”

Lúcio never gets the chance to answer. He begins backing away almost as soon as Mei begins to move.

She launches herself at Jamie far harder than she should given their injuries, but she can’t stop herself. He sucks in his breath and has to brace his back against the cracked wall, but he catches her nonetheless, arms warm and strong around the small of her back.

“You _jackass,”_ she breathes, then kisses him with fierce, frustrated intensity.

He tastes like coffee bubble tea and dust and smoke and _heat._ Her skin prickles, hair standing on end and a shiver racing up her spine as he begins to kiss her back. His fingers press into her skin and he clutches her close, as if he fears that she might melt away and disappear.

##  _consider me charmed at the science in our skulls_

After a long, dizzying moment, some fraction of Mei’s senses return. She pulls back slightly, looking up into Jamie’s warm amber eyes.

“You _jerk,”_ she says, her voice cracking. “You absolute _jerk,_ letting m-me think you were _dead -”_

_“_ Aw, Snowflake,” he murmurs, his generous mouth twitching into a smirk. “Ya _do_ care.”

“Yeah, I _do,”_ she spits back, her small fist pounding softly against his chest. “So _apologize,_ you _ass -”_

This time _he_ kisses _her_ , and she is filled with an easy, calm warmth that does not fade even when he finally pulls away.

“I'm sorry,” he mumbles. “I'm sorry I scared ya so bad, Mei, and I promise I ain't gonna let it happen again.”

Mei hides her blushing face against his chest, heedless of the dust and dirt. “You _better_ not.”

“I got one condition, though.”

She glances up at him, one eyebrow arched. “Oh _really_?”

Jamie grins, devilish as ever. “Ya admit ya been head over heels for me since day one.”

“I have _not!”_

“Yeah, _right -”_

"Stop teasing me and let me get Mercy to look at you -"

"Oi, I'm  _fine,_ don't be changin' the subject _-"_

"You're  _bleeding!"_

"What's your point?"

" _You said you weren't going to scare me any more!"_

Jamie opens his mouth to retort, but all that comes out is a sigh.

"...you play dirty, Snowflake," he grumbles, tucking her dusty bangs behind one ear. "Fine, I'll let her look at me, ya happy?"

Mei rises up to her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his bruised cheek.

"Yes," she says softly. "Very."

##  _oh, how i love your chemicals..._


End file.
